Winemaker Notes
Blend: 90% Syrah, 10% Viognier
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Patrina checks in as 90% Syrah and 10% Viognier that was bottled in March of 2024. It has a beautifully perfumed, complex, nuanced style in its darker berry-fruited, peppery, floral violet, and subtle orange blossom-like aromas and flavors. I love its overall balance, it has silky, polished tannins, and just a classic, seamless, incredibly impressive style. It’s a terrific introduction to the wines of this incredible estate.
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Wine Spectator
Plump and polished, with sleekly layered black raspberry flavors that are accented by dark chocolate, savory meat and cracked pepper tones that sail on the long and savory finish. Drink now through 2033.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Syrah Patrina includes 10% Viognier and was aged in 60% new French oak. The nose is dominated by black and purple fruits with additional nuances of charcoal dust, leather and dusty gravel playing supporting roles. The medium-bodied palate displays good freshness and easygoing fruit flavors flanked by savory tinges. The finish is charming and direct, with fine tannins that provide a subtle grip. While already quite approachable, this entryway into the Alban lineup will surely reward a few years in the cellar.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
California’s coolest wine growing area, Edna Valley excels in the production of high quality Central Coast wines like Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Rhône Blends and aromatic white wines. It has a cool Mediterranean climate and an incredibly long growing season, giving late-ripening varieties plenty of opportunity to develop great phenolic complexity.
Its northwest to southeast orientation creates a direct path for cool Pacific air and fog to penetrate the valley from the Los Osos and Morro Bay area inwards. Low hillsides of both calcareous and volcanic soils are home to much of the vineyard acreage of the Edna Valley.